The Impact of Digital Economy on the High-Quality Development of Manufacturing Industry -- An Empirical Study Based on 277 Cities in China

Abstract

The digital economy has contributed to new growth points in the high-quality development of industrial manufacturing in the context of the swift advancement of information technology. It has emerged as the primary force behind contemporary high-quality economic development. This study builds a mediation effect model for regression analysis using panel data from 277 prefecture-level cities in the nation from 2006 to 2019. It uses the urbanization rate as the mediating variable. It then examines the path mechanism for the impact on developing the digital economy and high-quality manufacturing. The empirical results show that the digital economy significantly promotes the high-quality development of China's manufacturing industry. At the same time, the digital economy can promote the high-quality development of China's manufacturing industry by increasing the urbanization rate. For different levels of cities in China, the urbanization rate has different effects on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. Therefore, government departments and manufacturing enterprises need to increase their investment in science and technology to enhance the digital level of intelligent manufacturing in the manufacturing service industry to form a two-way integration and coordinated development of science and technology and the real economy.